


A Private Oratory

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Comedy, Explicit Language, Post-War, Romance, The Quidditch Pitch: Eternity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-10
Updated: 2006-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-26 15:16:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10789275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: Post-War, Draco is in a coma, and Harry likes spending time with someone who accepts him for who he is. A bit on the fluffy side, with Seamus being used shamelessly for comedy.





	A Private Oratory

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

Harry hadn't been much for company after the War. Going from being The Boy Who Lived to The Young Man Who Lived had come with its fair share of interviews, cooing women, well-wishers, and the recurring nightmares from his final confrontation with Voldemort. Which explained why his Friday evenings were sacred, spent in ward 43 of St. Mungo's, with Draco Malfoy.  
  
Who was in a coma.  
  
"You're batty, mate," Ron said, staring down his cue at a particularly challenging shot during their weekly get-together. Tuesdays found the two of them at the Selkie's Swim, enjoying a few pints and Harry usually getting thrashed at snooker. "He doesn't talk back. Why d'you keep going over there? I thought his condition was terminal."  
  
"Yeah," Seamus chimed in, his brogue and enthusiasm undiminished despite having suffered some particularly vicious hexes which left him with a limp and a rather faulty memory. "Even Crabbe and Goyle don't visit the bastard."  
  
"Crabbe and Goyle are in Azkaban," Harry reminded him, polishing the top of his cue stick. "And the only reason he's in St. Mungo's at all is because he ended up defying his father."  
  
"Why doesn't he visit him?"  
  
Harry sighed as he blew spare blue chalk off of his cue. "Dead, Seamus."  
  
"Right. I knew that."  
  
"'Course you did, Finnigan," Ron chuckled. "What's my name?"  
  
"Weasley. Ronald Bilius Weasley. I'm not an idiot, you know."  
  
Ron grinned. "Just checking."  
  
Harry shook his head. "He's comforting. I just sit." He leaned over the table, steadying the cue stick in the crook between his thumb and index finger. "I don't have to explain, I don't have to talk about how my day was-"  
  
"We don't make you do that!" Seamus interjected. "Or do we?" He looked to Ron for affirmation.  
  
"No. We don't," Ron reassured him.  
  
"So why hang out with a slimy Slytherin who doesn't have anything to say?" Seamus goaded.  
  
"Forget it," Harry said, making his shot. "You wouldn't understand."  
  
The balls made a very satisfying cracking sound as they ricocheted soundly and one went sinking into the corner pocket.  
  
"Nice shot," Ron murmured.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
  
***  
  
  
"Good evening, Mr. Potter," the junior healer chirped cheerily at him. "Nice to see you again."  
  
"It's Harry. You can call me Harry," he insisted, brushing a rogue bit of fringe out of his eyes. "Anastasia, isn't it?" he asked, confirming the name as he looked at her nametag. "Nice to see you again as well." He smiled and began to turn from the desk.  
  
"Your devotion is inspiring, Harry." She blushed slightly. "Mr. Malfoy doesn't receive many visitors, and you're here regular as clockwork, so we healers-"  
  
"We healers what?" Harry said, his voice heated. "Are assuming things that perhaps we shouldn't be? Why is it that people think it's so odd to visit somebody who's in a coma? Malfoy's not dead. He's just quiet."  
  
The junior healer blanched under his barrage.  
  
"I'll be going to his room now."  
  
She nodded, silent.  
  
Harry strode down the corridor.  
  
  
***  
  
  
"I've really been enjoying this, and while you might think it's certainly a flight of fancy, there's a lot to it. Very dense. Think I'll start over and read it to you." Harry retrieved his copy of _The Lord of the Rings_ from a satchel and thumbed to the first page. "There's all kinds of background stuff, languages and family trees and whatnot, but you don't really need to know that to enjoy it. There is a dragon in the sort of prelude book, but I'm not going to read that one. I think one dragon in my life is quite enough."  
  
Harry looked over at Draco's calm face, undisturbed by how blank and unchanging the visage was. Other people couldn't seem to understand why Harry was drawn to visit the disinherited heir, but he had never been one to care much about what other people thought. Malfoy needed company, and somehow Harry believed that he benefited from the shared time as much as his mute companion. "You're quite the handsome devil, y'know," Harry said quietly, extending his arm to brush the back of two fingers on Malfoy's cheek. He shook his head. "Good thing you can't hear me," he mused, settling back into his chair. "I'm afraid if you heard the compliment from me you'd probably want to run screaming from the room."  
  
Harry raised his hand and cleared his throat behind it.  
  
_"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday…"_  
  
  
***  
  
  
Harry increased his visits to include Sunday afternoons as well as Friday evenings. Then he added Wednesdays.  
  
"I think you're becoming obsessed. No offense, of course," Hermione continued on hurriedly, then tapped her fingernails against her front teeth.  
  
"None taken," Harry growled into his filing cabinet, then, pulling out the first folder he could find, he slammed the drawer shut. "Look," he began, dropping into his chair and propping his feet on the desk, "you grew up in a Muggle household just like I did. Didn't you read about those miracle cases when people came out of comas, years later?" He slouched sulkily, using his crossed ankles as a pivot to twist slightly back and forth.  
  
"What? So you think that because you go and read some arcane book to Malfoy three days a week he's going to come out of a _crucio_ -induced coma? And why are you so interested?" A feral glint came into her eyes. "Oh," she purred. "It's all becoming clear."  
  
"What's becoming clear?" Harry gave Hermione a piercing look.  
  
"You _fancy_ him." She smiled widely. "Now I understand."  
  
"I do not!" he exploded. "I just don't like to think that somebody who stood up to one of the highest-ranking Death Eaters and paid an incredibly high price would end up neglected and forgotten at some ward in St. Mungo's. Even if that somebody is Draco Malfoy."  
  
Hermione twisted her mouth to one side. "Hmph."  
  
"I don't fancy him," Harry insisted. "But I do know what it's like to feel neglected. Sure, he probably can't hear me, and were he awake, I reckon he'd prefer that anyone else visit but me, but there y'go. Beggars can't be choosers." He shrugged his shoulders while Hermione took a tendril of hair and stuck it in her mouth, sucking on it.  
  
"Hmph," she repeated.  
  
"Hermione, I really do have to get some work done." Harry looked meaningfully at the folder he had pulled from his filing cabinet.  
  
"Well!" she huffed. "If I'm merely an impediment to you doing work…"  
  
"I'll come get you for afternoon tea, okay?"  
  
She tilted her head as a smile blossomed across her face. "Fine." She glanced at the red file folder. "Oh. Yikes. I'll leave you to it," she said, as she scooted out of his office.  
  
Harry looked at the label, then hung his head in his hands. "Oh Merlin," he moaned.  
  
**_Raising the Wand- Impotence in the Wizarding Community_**  
  
  
***  
  
  
"What do you mean, he's not here? He's in a bloody coma! I'm the only one who visits him! I'm here every other day!"  
  
The healer- senior, not junior- withstood Harry's onslaught with a stern expression until he stopped gesticulating and finally took a glowering stance, hands firmly planted on the front desk.  
  
"Were you family, you would have been notified," she stated primly, then stared with growing disapproval at Harry's miscreant hands resting on her formerly body-parts-free counter.  
  
Harry stood up to full height and glared at the senior healer. "Miss Mergatrude. I mean you no disservice, but I must demand that you tell me who checked out Mr. Malfoy."  
  
"Mr- " the healer started.  
  
"Potter. Harry Potter," he fumed. "I'm sure you know the name."  
  
The raised eyebrow was the only fracture in the healer's still-resilient exterior. "Mr. Potter. While famous, and thank Merlin for that, you are still not family," she said, emphasizing the last three words. She took a deep breath in through her nose and Harry was reminded of a young version of McGonagall. "Mr. Malfoy checked himself out. This morning."  
  
"What do you mean he checked himself out? That's impossible!"  
  
"No, it's not. He regained consciousness, we took several auralics and had to agree that he appeared to be as good as new."  
  
Harry gaped. "He's- he's- I've cured him!"  
  
Healer Mergatrude fixed Harry with a stern look. "You've done a great many things, Mr. Potter, but I would dare say that you could allow us healers a few victories. We've been here with the Malfoy patient _every_ day."  
  
Harry slumped. "Can you at least tell me where he went? I'd like to - Well, I wanted to read to him."  
  
The healer sniffed. "As an of-age wizard, Mr. Malfoy was under no obligation to tell us where he was going. I'm afraid that I cannot help you on that front."  
  
Harry ran a hand through his hair. Even he was a bit surprised at his reaction. He didn't care that much, surely. It was just Draco. Just the one person who asked nothing of him, whose company he enjoyed, even if it was one-sided. Maybe, if Harry were honest with himself, he was a bit insulted to think that his influence had made no difference over these months.  
  
"I am sorry, Mr. Potter." The healer seemed to have picked up on Harry's constrained distress, and she spoke more kindly. "If he was someone close to you, I have no doubt that you'll be able to find him again."  
  
The tops of Harry's shoes had never appeared so interesting. He stared at them, contemplating this turn of events and the fact that he was absolutely, passionately, desperate to find Draco Malfoy.  
  
And he wasn't sure why. Except that he truly, madly, mundanely missed him.  
  
"I had only started 'The Scouring of the Shire,'" Harry said weakly.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
  
***  
  
  
It took two months, twenty-three days, fourteen hours and forty-two minutes for Harry to find him.  
  
"Malfoy!" Harry enthused when Draco answered the door.  
  
"Potter," Draco drawled.  
  
Harry willed his knees not to turn to jelly. Draco never spoke back, of course. Or hadn't. Now he was glad that had been the case or there might have been some explaining to do.  
  
"Not your charity case. So pleased that you visited so much when I was indisposed. Now I'm making a new life. You're not a part of it."  
  
The door shut.  
  
"Oy!" Harry beat on the wooden surface.  
  
The door opened. Clear grey eyes gazed fixedly at him.  
  
"Didn't my visits mean anything?"  
  
"I don't remember." Each syllable was carefully clipped. "I was in a coma."  
  
"How'd you know I visited, then?"  
  
Draco let out a small sigh. "The healers were quite keen to tell me. Both about their miraculous skills, and also that a particular, and particularly famous, young man, chose to spend an inordinate amount of time visiting. As I said. I'm not your charity case, but thank you so much for seeing me when apparently no-one else cared."  
  
This time Harry was ready, and had his foot near the doorframe. The forceful impact still hurt.  
  
"Bloody hell!"  
  
"What're you doing, Potter?"  
  
"Not allowing you to shut your door in my face, yet again, you ingrate."  
  
"Ingrate?" Draco sneered. "As I remember, which I don't, I didn't have any choice in the matter. Now. Good day."  
  
"Don't you want to know how it ends?" Harry yelled as the door shut firmly. He waited. The door didn't re-open. "Well? Don't you?" he shouted at the shuttered windows.  
  
Resounding silence answered him.  
  
"FINE! Because who else would read to you, you pompous, ungrateful arse? Nobody! That's who!"  
  
Harry stormed away from the flat.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Eleven days later, Harry received an unexpected parchment from an unknown owl. It had passed security clearances, so he wasn't worried, but it was still odd. Finely scripted penmanship in a beautiful sepia ink gleamed from the paper.

_You're right- no one else would have taken the time to visit as often as you did,  
much less continued to read to me. My apologies.  
  
Yes, I do want to know how it ends. And begins.  
It's all a bit vague.  
  
Being unconscious, and all that.  
  
D.M._

  
  
"Now what?" Harry questioned himself, trying to will away the betrayal of his racing pulse. "Didn't you want him to respond? C'mon. You faced down Voldemort. This is just Malfoy. It's just a book."  
  
_Actually you know you do fancy Malfoy,_ his traitorous conscience reminded him. _You miss his presence, and while his appreciation is lacking, you're still hopeful that you've made an impression on him as he's unwittingly made on you._  
  
"Arrrgh!" Harry said out loud, startling the owl, which hooted in affront. "Oh. Sorry." The owl looked knowingly at him, then began to preen its feathers. "A reply."  
  
Harry found an unbroken quill and piece of parchment. To his dismay, all of his papers had the words 'From the desk of Harry Potter, Order of Merlin, Junior Undersecretary, Unsolvable Mysteries' on them, but he decided maybe it wasn't a bad thing for Draco to see that he had a title and had made something of himself. In erratic scrawl, he penned:

_Dear Draco, Tuesdays are snooker night. Selkie's Swim. Just leave your ego at home as otherwise I'm sure Ron will stomp on it.  
  
p.s. Thanks for the owl. Hope to see you Tuesday._

  
Reasonably satisfied, he tied the note to the owl which then left his office, disturbing several memos that had been winging their way toward him. _Oh Merlin,_ he suddenly thought. _Ron **and** Seamus will be there. I'll never see him again after this. Bugger. Nice one, Potter._  
  
Despondently, he looked at his calendar. Four days before he got to see Draco socially for the first and surely the last time. Well, he'd certainly known disappointment before. He pulled a file on unexplained outbreaks of emmalexis creeper and tried to absorb his attentions in it.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Tuesday found Harry shouting the second round of pints when a surprisingly sultry voice said into his ear, "If you spent more time focused on your stick's trajectory and less on watching the door you'd have a far better game, Potter."  
  
He couldn't help himself, but Harry shut his eyes for a moment and leaned back slightly, trying to breathe in Draco's scent. "Malfoy. You showed."  
  
"Of course. How could I turn down the opportunity to show up a couple of Gryffindor war heroes-turned-paper-pushers?"  
  
Harry whirled around, the acerbic retort on his lips when Draco continued, "Desk jockey though you may be, seeing you in those trousers is enough to make me wish I were an inbox on your desk. They are in use at the Ministry, I assume?"  
  
Harry swallowed. "Yes. Mine's pretty empty at the moment," he confessed.  
  
"Good. I hate to be crowded."  
  
Harry appraised the blond man, who offered to take the drinks over to their table. "So. Thanks for showing up. I hope you're not here solely out of guilt-induced obligation, though."  
  
"Not at all," Draco said, scooting past Harry in close enough proximity so that Harry could notice and appreciate the other man's well-tailored form. And the bag over his shoulder.  
  
"What is that?" Harry asked, picking up the remaining glass from the bar and following Draco, who had obviously seen the impossible-to-miss towering form of Ron Weasley waving madly from the other side of the room.  
  
"Cue stick."  
  
"You have your own?" Harry was shocked.  
  
Draco turned briefly and cast a wicked grin. "I have many skills that you can only begin to guess about, Potter."  
  
Harry almost fell over his shoes and was recovering with the grace of a thestral on rollerskates when Draco turned around once more. He spoke so quietly that Harry could barely hear him above the din of the pub.  
  
"Reading aloud is not one of those, however. Your talents in that field are unparalleled, and I do hope you'll indulge me later."  
  
The grin escaped from Harry quite despite himself.  
  
"I need to know what happens to those hobbit-creatures," Draco said with exaggerated concern as they approached the table. "Seems I absorbed a lot despite not really being there. Ah. Weasley. Finnigan. Prepare to meet your doom."  
  
"Do what?" Seamus exclaimed. "Who's this?" he jerked his thumb at Draco.  
  
"Malfoy. You know that." Ron cuffed Seamus on the shoulder.  
  
"Right," Seamus sniffed, then took a long pull from his newly-delivered pint. "Don't think I can stand you."  
  
"Nor I you," Draco said, placing the triangle over the balls on the table. "Let's play."  
  
  
***  
  
  
"So. You had almost finished reading me this monstrosity before I so rudely woke up and left the sanctity of St. Mungo's," Draco said.  
  
His voice was deeper than Harry had remembered; caramel-like in its tone, though still with an edge. Burnt honey, perhaps? Was there such a thing?  
  
"Potter? Do you often find yourself falling into a daze?" Knowing suggestiveness danced in Draco's eyes as he turned the heavy book in his hands.  
  
"No," Harry replied, chastened. "Suppose I'm a bit distracted."  
  
One light eyebrow quirked on Draco's face. "Well, you did invite me here to your flat."  
  
"Yes I did," Harry said, his voice belying his own surprise that he had done so. "But you don't really want me to read to you, though. Or do you?" Harry was genuinely puzzled, but the feelings rapidly turned into a low throb in his groin as Draco approached him with the book. "And what made you change your mind? About having me in your life, I mean?"  
  
"My, my," Draco said, his breath so close to Harry's ear that Harry had to suppress a shiver. A flash of _'Merlin, I could reach out and touch him,'_ raced through him, giving him goosebumps under his jumper. "So many questions. Think I'll have to sit down first."  
  
He handed Harry the book, then strode the few steps it took to get to the small couch, and dropped gracefully into it. Harry followed.  
  
"I would love for you to read to me. I've been reading to myself, which, in contrast to before my time at St. Mungo's, remains most unsatisfying. It seems that your time with me must have had something to do with that."  
  
Harry plunked down in the seat next to Draco, covering his lap and a most unfortunate burgeoning embarrassment with the massive tome.  
  
Draco gently cleared his throat. "As for why I changed my mind, well, I think it was your earnestness. And the fact that I know full well how long it must have taken you to find me. Dedication like that is rare." Harry watched as Draco brushed imaginary lint from a knee of his trousers. "Even though I do truly want to start over after the wretched War, so many people are still trying to use me. All you wanted to do, so I hear, was spend time with me. Though I must admit to being a bit insulted that my company was so compelling when I was unable to talk back."  
  
Draco gazed at Harry, who blurted out, "You don't think I'm a perv, do you? It wasn't anything weird. You were calming."  
  
"I was immobile."  
  
"But not dead. Just quiet. And you'd sacrificed yourself. I couldn't stand the thought of you just sitting there, no better than a potted plant or something."  
  
Draco licked his bottom lip, then bit down slightly, pondering. "That's incredibly generous of you."  
  
"Wasn't generous at all," Harry insisted, nudging at the book. "And I'd remembered stuff from some ridiculous Muggle magazines my Aunt Petunia used to read about people coming out of comas. Plus you're certainly not an eyesore."  
  
Draco tilted his head, a slow smile blooming in the corners of his mouth. "Are you saying that you think I'm attractive, Potter?" His gaze raked over Harry slowly, making Harry feel both desired and foolish.  
  
Harry decided that brazen was the best approach. "Yes, Draco," he replied, then moved the book over to the cushion on his right. "Call me a bloody idiot, but just your voice has this effect on me." He waved vaguely over his lap at the obvious arousal there.  
  
"But when you visited, I wasn't saying anything." The grey gaze wandered briefly to acknowledge the goings-on of Harry's lap, then politely returned to Harry's face.  
  
"No. I was comfortable around you. You let me be just me. I mean, Ron does that too, but I don't fancy him." Harry paused for a moment as his brain caught up with his mouth. _Oh fuck._ "I mean, sure we had a rivalry in school and all that, but after you stood up to the Death Eaters, there was this weird respect for you, and oh, bollocks. You've always known that you're good looking."  
  
"Pity that you've not always known the same about yourself." Draco took a deep breath, and Harry watched his chest rise and fall.  
  
_This is a nightmare,_ Harry thought, staring at the few shining hairs revealed underneath the unbuttoned top of Draco's shirt. All of a sudden Draco's comment registered in his addled mind.  
  
"Draco. Did you just say I'm attractive?"  
  
There was a sigh. "This from the savior of the wizarding world. As a person, and an eighteenth generation Slytherin currently sharing the cushions with probably an eighteenth generation Gryffindor, I'm afraid that I just don't know you very well, but your brain's response time does seem to be appallingly slow for someone so talented."  
  
"Lean over."  
  
The tension was excruciating, yielding to heated bliss. Harry had had some practice kissing, but Draco had evidently had more. Their lips met, then pressed, and then there was an indefinable amount of time in which they tried to topple each other on the couch as their tongues met, and searched, and swept through eager mouths. After a while, Harry found himself stretched out on Draco like a dog on shady ground; his feet were braced against Draco's shoes, and he held Draco's long fingers in his hands, undulating slowly against the other man's hips, nuzzling and sucking the side of his neck, the jawline with almost imperceptible coppery shadow, then back to his mouth where the now-familiar tongue teased and welcomed and Draco was arching up into him, and…  
  
  
***  
  
  
"Are you sure you want me to read to you with your head in my lap?"  
  
"Only after you clean yourself up, or I will indeed think you're a perv, as you put it." Draco said satedly, eyes half shut. "But I do want to hear how it ends."  
  
"It's a long chapter!" Harry called over his shoulder, padding barefoot to his toilet.  
  
"I have all night," Draco replied.  
  
Harry stopped, then walked back, leaning against the doorframe that opened into his small living room.  
  
"Just one night?" Harry tried to convince himself that he didn't actually _need_ Draco, but he most certainly had his hopes set on seeing the sexy young man again.  
  
"I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to seeing me around, Potter, unless I've completely misread you." Draco snorted, and pulled an early edition Hermione Granger blanket over his nude figure. "Pun intended."  
  
Harry grinned, teeth sparkling in the dim firelight, his arms crossed his chest. "Good. Just don't go running when I start reading _The Silmarillion._ Though I think you'll like it, especially since that one is much darker. More dragons."  
  
"Merlin," Draco moaned, hefting the knitted throw over his face. "Let's just finish the one, first, okay?"  
  
"Definitely," Harry exhaled softly.  



End file.
